FPL conducts hurricane-during-a-pandemic drill to test employee response

Florida Power & Light Company (FPL) conducted a simulation hurricane in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic as a test for their 3,000 employees.

The simulated storm, Hurricane Clyde, made landfall near Naples as a Category 1 hurricane before moving across the Gulf of Mexico and making a second landfall near Pensacola. The damaging and dangerous storm spawned tornadoes and left approximately 1.1 million customers in the service territory out of power.

The week-long drill tested employees’ ability to respond to hurricane and tornado damage and outages. It also called for bringing in out-of-state crews to support the restoration due to COVID-19 concerns and government restrictions. It took place at a staging site at the St. Lucie County Fairgrounds that incorporated pandemic preparations. During the staging site drill, FPL studied various social-distancing practices and methods of conducting daily temperature screenings to determine the most effective way to check restoration personnel before they go to work.

“While responding to a hurricane during this global pandemic will undoubtedly present us with extraordinary challenges, FPL refuses to simply accept them at face value. It’s why we’ve spent the last two weeks drilling and challenging our teams to test their assumptions to find ways to increase productivity and efficiencies to better serve our customers, all while never sacrificing safety,” FPL President and CEO Eric Silagy said. “As evident by the fact that our system operated on all cylinders even as we broke an all-time record for peak daily energy usage this week, we’re working tirelessly to be there for customers during a time when reliable, uninterrupted electricity is needed more than ever. This will only be amplified if we are dealt a hurricane amid COVID-19 and we continue to do everything we can to ensure we’re in the best possible position to be there for customers when they need us most.”

FPL’s restoration process has been expanded this year to add new safety measures to help protect customers and FPL personnel from COVID-19.

“While we are committed to restoring power to customers as quickly as possible following a hurricane, I am not willing to sacrifice safety for speed,” Silagy said. “The No. 1 priority of every employee and contractor working to restore power is to return home safely to loved ones. This has always been at the core of our hurricane response and it remains at the heart of everything we do this hurricane season.”